SAVANNAH – Democrats say there are “secret” voters in rural, predominantly white parts of Georgia who would be willing to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, even if they’re not going to put a yard sign up for the campaign.
“There is a real fear that if I have a sign on my car, or a sticker on my car or sign in my yard, that it could be stolen, it could be shot and or damaged, vandalized,” Cathi Frederiksen, regional organizing director for the Democratic Party of Georgia, which is running a coordinated campaign with the Harris-Walz ticket, told NOTUS. “I’m not willing to take that risk, no matter how strong my politics and my political beliefs are.”
Contrary to past Democratic electoral wisdom, focused on driving up urban and suburban voter turnout in the metropolitan Atlanta area, there’s growing evidence that focusing on narrowing the margins in counties they won’t win can tip the scales.
Chatham County, where Savannah is, and Liberty County, where Harris and Walz made their only stops Wednesday and Thursday during a Georgia bus tour, are both safe Democratic counties. But they’re in a sea of deep red counties, where Joe Biden made marginal inroads between 2016 and 2020.
Those areas are now deliberately part of the Harris-Walz strategy. Democrats believe a similar approach could work in Pennsylvania and North Carolina too.
“Campaigning in Southeast Georgia is critical as it represents a diverse coalition of voters, including rural, suburban, and urban Georgians — with a large proportion of Black voters and working class families,” Georgia state director for the Harris campaign Porsha White wrote in a memo Wednesday.
At Enmarket Arena in Savannah Thursday, the 7,500-person crowd was made up of roughly half white and half Black Harris supporters. It’s the first time a general election presidential candidate campaigned in Savannah since the 1990s, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.
On the floor of the arena, after her speech, Francys Johnson, board chair of the New Georgia Project, said that while Harris only stopped in the two blue spots across a sea of red Georgia counties, she went where she needed to go to signal to local Democratic voters the campaign is not just about Atlanta.
“Going to Hinesville was important. That’s very important. That’s a blue county, and she’s sending a message to the folks to fight for every inch of Georgia. She went to a Black-owned restaurant, which signals to small-business owners she will fight for them,” Johnson told NOTUS. He recounted meeting Harris earlier in the day and telling her, “You’re going to win this,” to which he got back a “We’re going to win this.”
Georgia Democratic Rural Council Chair Len Fatica told NOTUS they “were kind of hoping” for more stops in red counties too during this bus tour, but added “that could happen in the future.”
Biden’s 2020 win flipping Georgia blue in a presidential race for the first time in 28 years was largely attributed to a significant uptick in voters in Atlanta and its suburbs, but he also did better on the margins in the rest of the state.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton received about 34% of the vote outside the Atlanta metropolitan area and Biden got about 37%, according to an analysis by 538. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s 2022 3-point reelection win has also been attributed, in part, to rural voter outreach, and Warnock’s campaign manager is also now on the Harris campaign.
Harris-Walz organizing director for South Georgia, Antoinette Ross, gave the Democratic organizers in Savannah their due for Warnock’s win during the rally Thursday.
“Because of the work of the people in this room, tireless volunteers, activists and organizers across the state, we flipped Georgia blue for President Biden and Vice President Harris; we delivered a Democratic Senate majority by electing Sen. Warnock.”
So far this cycle, Democrats have spent $47.2 million on ads in Georgia compared to Republicans $40.2 million, according to a report last week from AdImpact. But as the Harris-Walz campaign rallied in Savannah Thursday, rural Democrats said serious presidential attention outside of Atlanta is a new phenomenon.
“A lot of those people don’t get touched by political campaigns, especially anything above someone like a county commissioner,” Frederiksen said. “These folks have never been reached out to before, so they’re not only incredibly appreciative, but it also lets them know that we see them.”
She lives in the 650-person town of Adrian, and made the hour-and-a-half drive to Thursday’s rally in Savannah. Votes like hers — passionate Democrats in solidly red counties — could become a deciding factor in November.
In Georgia, strategists also point to Stacey Abrams’ decade-long effort focused on registering rural Black Democrats as the groundwork for the strategy of winning in the rural margins. About a dozen people in Black Voters Matter shirts lined the sidewalk leading up to the rally Thursday.
“The activation of the rural Black voters in the state, that’s the only reason Georgia’s even the swing state right now, is because of that work,” former state Democratic Rural Council Chair Pete Fuller told NOTUS. “The demographics of Georgia are not that different than Alabama and Mississippi or South Carolina, but Georgia’s a swing state because of that.”
He also described quiet, rural white Democrats as “passing” as conservative in deep red areas, an assumption Black, rural voters typically aren’t afforded. Part of the rural strategy is getting those white Democrats to be public about their support, he said.
“I really think that does feed into the paranoia that, ‘Oh, where are all these votes coming from? Because I’ve never met a Democrat in my life?’ Yes, you have. They just haven’t been open about it.”
Melissa Clink, a political strategist in Gainesville, Georgia, echoed the sentiment, adding that she’s been focused on putting Democratic volunteers in nonpolitical events to soften the blow in majority-red counties. She said she’s especially heard from white women who are “ecstatic” about Harris but are nervous about sharing it publicly.
“We’re participating in different charitable organizations, and we’re making sure to wear Democratic shirts, kind of just introducing the fact that Democrats are good people,” Clink told NOTUS. “I think that it’s part of a larger plan.”
The Harris campaign flagged the strategy to reporters Wednesday, quoting former Lt. Gov. of Georgia Geoff Duncan in a memo Wednesday, “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot.”
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Claire Heddles is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.